Vojen Syrovátka

“When I passed the school-leaving ‘maturita’ exam in 1960 I went to the HR department in my company and asked for a recommendation for the university. It was not possible to apply without a recommendation then. They refused, saying they thought I would apply for a technical college. They would have supported that, not theology. I said I wanted to apply for theology anyway. And they said: ‘Look, if you apply without our recommendation, you won’t be accepted. And if you apply without our recommendation, we will learn and will fire your mum.’ Mum had about a year and a half to go to be retired. I thought something very indecent about them, something I will not repeat. And I said I would not do it and I would have to go to the military service anyway. So I went to the military.”

“When you became a political prisoner your family was either moved out, into a village or to the border, since the expanding apparatus of the Ministry of Interior needed many flats. This was the way they got them. Or when the flat was a bigger one, they halved it and moved a Ministry employee into the other half. This was our case. We lived in Dejvice in a four-room flat, there was a kitchen with a room for maid. They left us two rooms, the other two were occupied by a Secret Police family, then another. We got along quite fine with the latter. We had different opinions. Me and my mum guarded our mouth when speaking to them, especially while my father was in prison, but otherwise we got along well. My mum had no need to bring hatred into our life. When my father returned from the prison the Secret Police officer had to complete his secondary school education. He had terrible problems with maths. And my father gave him lessons, while voicing openly his opinions. And the officer held him in such a high regard that when my father died after years, he came to his funeral.”